Open Educational Resources

A literature review of empirical research on the impacts of OER adoption.

Study of students at a Virginia community college found that most students considered OER to be as good or better in terms of quality and engagement as traditional texts, while also allowing them to put saved funds toward their educational pursuits.

Through a mixed method approach, this article examines the student and faculty experiences of adopting and using an OpenStax textbook. With 1,299 student participants, it was found that students greatly value the quality, attributes, and the cost of the OpenStax Biology textbook, though minor concerns were raised about its online format. The student, faculty, and course benefits of this study offer a compelling argument for the adoption of high quality open education resources (OER) in public higher education contexts.

A need to reduce course material costs sparked a project fueled by two epiphanies: students need access to free content, even if it requires a login; and, when armed with information literacy research skills, students can find their own content.
When students cull and curate a living textbook, their role changes from passive recipients of knowledge to active content experts and drivers of the pedagogy, creating a "read-write" classroom culture.

Jan. 2018 article in the Atlantic discussing access codes for digital course platforms that students are required to purchase.

"Beginning this fall, students who take the MATH 021 Introductory Algebra course at Brookdale Community College in New Jersey will no longer have to buy a traditional textbook . . ."

"In response to the skyrocketing cost of student textbooks, Raritan Valley Community College (RVCC) has launched a pilot program to provide students in 10 different classes with free access to textbooks."